


In Darkness

by Trobadora



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Post-Episode: s10e06 Extremis, Vault conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 02:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: How can I save them when I'm lost to the dark?





	In Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruuger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/gifts).



  
  


* * *

  
  


_In darkness, we are revealed._

  
  


* * *

  
  


The Doctor's world was green, bare-bones outlines provided by his sonic sunglasses substituting for actual eyesight. The seam where the Vault's door segments met was a thin, green line.

"Something's coming, Missy, and I'm blind," the Doctor whispered into it. The words fell from his mouth like a confession, the locked door standing in for the screen of a confessional. Missy for a priest; now there was an irony worthy of a connoisseur. "How can I save them when I'm lost to the dark?"

He turned away abruptly, his back to the door, his back to the question he'd just asked. He'd said too much, revealed too much, to _her_ of all people - and he couldn't be certain what she'd do with the knowledge, or what she'd say in response.

She was his friend; she'd said so. He believed she meant it. But what she meant _by_ it, he simply couldn't be sure.

The Doctor stood still - tense, anticipating, dreading. Locked in place, there at the threshold, poised to go but not leaving. Caught in between. He wanted too much, always, and in his wanting, tore himself apart.

There was no reaction from the Vault. Perhaps Missy was asleep, hadn't even heard anything he'd said. Wouldn't that be fitting.

His shoulders sagged. The Doctor let himself slump back against the locked door, head bowed, eyes closed behind the glasses, shutting out the relentless green outline of the world.

What was he waiting for? Given what was coming, what he'd seen coming through the eyes of a simulated version of himself - why was he still standing here? If only he knew what to do, or where to go.

The Doctor opened his eyes. He'd talk to Nardole; that was something he could do, at least, small though it was. 

One step away from the door, and suddenly behind him Missy's piano began to sound. _Agnus Dei._

Of course she'd heard - and of course she'd picked up on more than the words themselves. If he was ambivalent about having said anything in the first place, of course the universe wouldn't let him avoid the consequences.

 _Miserere nobis. - Have mercy on us._ Now wouldn't that be nice.

The piano stopped. The Doctor stood in the silence, hesitating. 

"Well?" came an impatient voice from the Vault.

The Doctor snorted a ragged laugh. He turned back, unlocked the door with clumsy fingers and went inside, pulled by the invisible strings of her voice. The outline of the Vault unfolded in front of him, green lines overlaid with the grid that defined his world. One person inside, on the steps of the piano platform, twin heart beats steady.

He wouldn't have recognised her, like this. All his sonic sunglasses could tell him was that he had a female Gallifreyan before him. Body temperature, hearts rate, weight, sex, physical age of current regeneration. All the details, none of the context. His chest tightened.

"Mozart's Requiem?" he asked drily as he came closer, crossing the Vault briskly. Out of all the versions of the _Agnus Dei_ , why this? "Is that what you think of my chances?" 

"No, you ninny, that's what _you_ think," Missy retorted, sounding rather grumpy about it. And damn her for being right, too.

It wasn't until he was almost next to her that he realised she wasn't standing; she was sitting on a step. The Doctor fell to his knees beside her, face turned to the side. What point pretending to be looking at her? 

"Missy."

"Doctor," she echoed back, only slightly mocking. "What have you done to yourself now?"

He didn't answer. An explanation of what had caused his blindness would only have led back to yet another discussion about altruism, self-preservation, and his attachment to his friends. Any other day, he'd gladly have gone a round or fifty with her on the subject, but not today.

Not with what was coming, what he was woefully unprepared for.

 _I need your help, Missy. Tell me what to do._ But that wasn't how it went, was it? 

Suddenly Missy's hand was at the side of his face, snatching off his sunglasses. Green lines flickered out, and the world went dark. A momentary panic surged through him. What was she doing?

"Don't," he forced out, hand groping blindly in her direction, and she smacked it away.

"Oh, pfft," Missy said, unconcerned, distracted. "Stop it, I'm looking at this."

"Well, don't," he snapped. "Stop this, Missy." _Please._

"Why?" Missy's voice turned into an accusing sing-song. "Because you don't want me to see just how pathetic this is?"

"Missy." All that effort keeping the desperation out of his voice, and still he was failing. 

_And now we're alone here; I'm blind; and Missy has a sonic device._ If she wanted to ... Something cold wound itself around his hearts, and clenched.

 _Don't turn away from me now, Missy. Not when I need you the most._ But he couldn't rely on her not to, couldn't trust her to help, couldn't dare to. No matter how much he might want to.

Options; he needed options. 

"Doctor," she said, and he didn't have to be able to see; her eyeroll was audible enough. "You blind yourself, all right. No doubt you think you had good reason. You refuse to regenerate to heal yourself, all right. Your body, your stupidity; I won't argue. But this?" She patted his cheek, condescendingly. "This is barely a step up from a white cane."

Damn it, he should have known she'd fixate on that. Nardole hadn't yet, but only because keeping secrets from Bill was distracting him. Still; better this than what else she might be doing. Right?

"So what if it is?" He'd never minded sounding - or being - sulky or childish. He didn't care now, either. He didn't.

"You don't want implants," she says, sounding actually thoughtful, as if she were putting herself in his place. How strange, from her. "Believe me or not, I get that. And you don't want to go to Gallifrey; I _really_ get that." Wry humour, now. Their complicated relationship with their homeworld was one thing they'd always shared, even at the worst of times. "But even short of that, and given the limits of what other species can do with Time Lord biology, I can think of five different planets just off the top of my head where they could make you a better assistive device than this."

As if he didn't know that. He said nothing. 

Missy sighed. "Why are you here, Doctor? Not to let me talk you into going to Antaxbras Five or the Ringworld Polyclinic, I don't think. Even though they're _quite_ competent, for a few decades in the 57th century at least."

"Even if I wanted to, I can't leave now." That, at least, was the truth. "Something's coming, Missy. I told you that." _And I need to know you're with me._ That was why he was here, and why he hadn't snatched his glasses back. No other reasons; none at all.

_Yeah, right._

Missy sighed again, ostentatiously. Her fingernails clicked against the plastic of the sunglasses' frame. She was still fiddling with them, doing whatever the hell she was doing, and the Doctor wasn't stopping her. 

She knew the opportunity she had in her hands, couldn't possibly have failed to realise. 

The Doctor reached out a hand towards her again - not groping for the glasses, this time, but holding out an open palm. Her dress rustled as she shifted, and then her hand was on his, fingers squeezing.

"What do you want, Doctor?" she asked again. "Seeking salvation, here of all places? _Ego te absolvo -_ "

"Don't." Harshly, because yes, yes he was. He'd come here, of all places, not just for help, but for reassurance, for _comfort_ , of all things. From the Master, of all people.

And here she was, her hand in his. Here she was, with his sonic glasses, and if she was doing anything with them other than mock their limitations, he couldn't tell.

Here they were, and as ever, it felt like falling into quicksand, or like sinking into a comfortable pillow. One or the other, and he couldn't tell. That was the problem, as always: he couldn't tell. He could only hope she wouldn't swallow him whole.

"It's always _don't_ ," Missy complained drolly. "How about _do_ instead?"

"Do what, Missy? 

"Let's start with this." Because his hand was on hers, he could feel her movement, but he only understood what she was doing when, suddenly, something slid against his skull above his ears, and the glasses dropped back down onto his nose.

Visual input returned, green and artificial and, right now, singularly unhelpful. The Doctor blinked briefly at the anonymous data the glasses provided. Angrily, he pulled them off again, folded them and stuffed them into a pocket. He closed his eyes. This way, he could almost pretend he was doing this deliberately.

Missy flicked a finger against his forehead. "Silly." 

"As ever," the Doctor snapped back. "Missy, I mean it - do _what_? Because I don't know. I'm blind, and I don't know."

"Pfft," she said again, letting go of his hand. "Something's coming, you said. Fine; what if it is? You're just blind, not _brain-dead_. - Though you're acting a bit like it, all right," she amended after a moment, sounding fond more than anything. She was leaning close now, very close - close enough to feel the heat of her skin, her breath on his face as she whispered into his ear. "Doctor." 

It was her most dangerous voice, her _I have a plan, and you've fallen right into it_ voice, filled with dreadful promise. Her hand closed around the back of his neck, fingers digging painfully into his skull, pulling on his hair. He should have flinched away; he should have thrown her off. 

Should have.

Silkily, "Remember the _Valiant_."

This time, the Doctor did flinch. He remembered it all, only too well. Aged up and weak, in a tent, on the floor, crawling before the Master. Shrunk and locked in a cage. Watching everyone he loved being tortured, or killed, or both. Watching a whole world suffering for the Master's entertainment.

He shuddered. "No," he ground out. What was Missy doing?

"Yes." She slapped the back of his head and huffed as she pulled away. "Why do you talk to me if you never listen?"

What was she saying? What was it about that horror that had anything to do with the current situation?

"I'm not even angry any more," Missy said blandly. "Such a lovely paradox, and you had to go and break it. Still don't see it? No? You're a bit slow today, aren't you."

He wanted to turn away from her, from the memories, but couldn't. "Missy, please." 

"A year," she snapped. "You waited a whole year to pull that trick on me. And now you're getting wibbly because you haven't yet defeated an invasion that hasn't even happened?"

His thoughts stalled. His face worked. Missy's voice echoed in his head. _A whole year._

A whole year he'd sat there and waited and watched. All the horrors the Master could bring to bear, all the suffering the Doctor couldn't prevent. Undoing it after the fact didn't mean it hadn't been real as it happened. But he'd waited, because there was a plan. 

A plan to save everyone, even the Master, though that part hadn't quite worked out in the end.

"Sometimes," Missy said, with exaggerated patience, "you just bide your time. Isn't that what you're afraid I'm doing?" Here in the Vault.

The Doctor flinched again. He could easily imagine the sharp smile that went with the words. That, or a wide-eyed, mock-hurt look. His hearts ached. He'd have given much to be able to see either, just now.

"Are you?" he asked, boldly.

She laughed. "That would be telling." 

"That's your advice, then? Just sit things out?" He tried to make it a scoff, but his thoughts were racing. 

"Wait and see, Doctor. Oh! Or don't see, in your case. Sometimes you just wait."

"I'm not good at waiting." The complaint is automatic, impossible to hold back.

"Darling, neither am I. And look at us both, now. Or don't look." More mockery, repeating the same witticism. He'd probably hear it a lot, from now on, if he didn't forestall it.

"Quit it," he muttered. "Don't ride it to death, Missy."

"Why ever not? There's been a stunning lack of death around me for way too long; I have to take my entertainment where I can get it."

Tired jokes as a substitute for murder? Well, why not, indeed. Better than most things she might have chosen - for certain values of _better_ , anyway.

The Doctor let out a helpless laugh. "Fine," he said. "All right, Missy, if that's what it takes." His voice felt hoarse, even if his ears told him it sounded perfectly normal. "You're right. Here we are. Just promise me -" He swallowed, but the words couldn't be swallowed down. "Promise me you'll be here, all right?" 

It was a singularly futile request; any promise she gave could be broken as easily as it might be kept. 

A moment's pause. "I wasn't planning on going anywhere," Missy said drily. "We agreed, didn't we?" 

They had. He'd just never been sure why she'd agreed, or what she meant by it, if anything. Blindly, the Doctor reached out with both hands. Missy was quiet. No rustle of movement broke the silence. His arms fell down again.

Then, with a brief snort of mirth, Missy shifted, and her arms were around him.

"Tut, tut," she said, patting his back. He buried his face in her shoulder and breathed. 

It lasted only for a moment; then Missy pulled away. "I'm the only one allowed to outwit you, dear," she said lightly, and pecked a kiss on his lips, quick and pointed, like punctuation.

"Yeah?" He'd have glared if he could have. As it was, he went through the physical motions of it anyway, eyes open, head leaning forward, eyebrows drawn down, just for the emphasis it provided. "And how's that going for you, _dear?_ "

A chuckle. "Wouldn't you like to know." 

He would have, at that. He dearly would, with an intensity that scared him - _wanted_ to know where he truly stood with Missy.

The Doctor was silent, fighting the very hope he was clinging to, knowing he couldn't remain in this limbo forever. Terrified of the end that must eventually come, no matter for how long he managed put it off - the answer he must one day hear, no matter _which_ answer it would turn out to be.

"Missy," broke from his throat again, a splintering word, a shattered voice. "What if I can't -"

" _How can I save them when I'm lost to the dark?_ " she quoted his own words back to him, mocking. "The worst part is, you're actually serious."

The Doctor's head came up. "What do you mean?" Why shouldn't he be?

Missy snorted. "Now, never mind the saving, that's all your hang-up," she continued, brightly. "You're blind, that's a fact. You're in the dark, I'll give you that. But why in the name of the Untempered Schism itself do you think you're lost?"

The Doctor blinked, in reflex, useless though it was. It could hardly clear a vision that didn't exist, and certainly didn't clear his mind. "I," he said, then broke off. "I, what." More blinking, and scratching of his skull, as if that could move the brain beneath into gear. "I, you, _what?_ "

Missy burst out laughing - no longer mocking, no longer deliberate, just unrestrained hilarity. " _What_ ," she echoed back at him, then dissolved into laughter again, gasping for air. 

And oh, wouldn't he have loved to be able to see it.

"What," he snapped back at her, and then had to snort himself at the sheer ridiculousness of it. He snorted again, and laughter spilled from his mouth as well, and he put his face into his hands as his shoulders shook with it.

Missy was right - he wasn't lost. He just couldn't _see_ the path before him; that was all.

And she could have kept silent, or fed his despair, or done any number of things, attempting to break out of the Vault only the most basic of them. Instead she'd mocked him, and laughed at him, and she'd reminded him who he was.

Hope clawed at his hearts, again, aching and tearing. Perhaps he really could have her back. Perhaps they could have each other, after all.

Still grinning, the Doctor reached into his pocket for his sunglasses. As they settled onto his nose and his vision filled with green once more, he stood up, resolutely. Time to get back outside. There was an invasion to deal with, and work for the Doctor to do.

Ready to go, he turned back to Missy.

"I'll be here," she said, a smirk audible in her voice.

The promise he'd asked for, actually delivered. "Of course you'll be."

And he went, unhesitating, because yes, she was right: he'd never been lost at all, in the dark.


End file.
